BSST article

Recently, the kickstarter for the pro-bending boardgame for The Legend of Korra lanuched. While I was initially fairly excited for the project, some parts of the whole project kind of bother me.

First of all, I think its kind of silly that this game is being kickstarted in the first place. Viacom, Nickelodeon, and even the Avatar franchise aren't anywhere near being broke, and can more than afford to spend some money on merchandising-- they've been licensing out quite expensive figures after all. Why on earth can't they afford to fund the board game themselves? This feels like they're kind of taking advantage of the die-hard Korra fan base while refusing to give us a bone or more of what we actually really want. Since this game is being kickstarted it essentially costs Viacom nothing, fans are paying for the entire project, but Viacom is definitely going to make money off of it.

In addition, why is the price so high? This is more than four times the price of The Legend of Korra video game which was, well, a video game. I'm excited for the game but it's more than twice the price of the average board game, and doesn't appear to be all that extraordinary. The board cover itself features already existing concept art, and there's very little new art in general. Even the figures which come with the game aren't painted, and they're not even colored, they're all gray. The core game is supposed to be fifty dollar without all of the deluxe extras-- still very expensive.

Of course, all of this could change in time once we see what the secret deluxe features in the game are (which will of course be sold for more in addition to the price of the core game). But why are they hiding what they are? I can understand it's likely to build hype for whatever is coming next, but the goal was met on the first day of the campaign being launched. Why do we need to wait to find out what's in it? I can't help but feel like it's going to probably be inevitably disappointing, so they don't want to tell people what they're paying for ahead of time.

Regardless, I am still looking forward to the project. Due to my several annoyances, I probably won't be supporting the kickstarter nor purchasing the game unless I happen to particularly like some of the upcoming content or find it on sale somewhere. I am curious to hear other people's thoughts on the matter, though. Feel free to send me a message on my wall or elsewhere if you're interested in discussing it.